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March 18, 2021243 molesters and 386 victims.
These are the numbers that emerged from the independent investigation conducted by a law firm in Munich, Germany, on the sexual abuse scandal reported in the largest Catholic archdiocese in Germany, that of Cologne, which took place between 1946 and 2018.
In the report published today and presented by the lawyer Bjorn Gercke we read that about 55 percent of the abuses involved children under the age of 14 and about half of sexual violence.
The rest of the cases had to do with verbal or physical abuse.
Almost two-thirds of the abuses were committed by members of the clergy, while the rest by lay people, the report reads, which indicates a clear increase in abuses between 2004 and 2018. The report, over 800 pages, was commissioned by the archbishop of Cologne, Rainer Maria Woelki.
The document mentions the current archbishop of Hamburg Stefan Hesse, who worked in Bonn, near Cologne, in the 1990s, and Joachim Meisner, who died in 2017 and Woelki's predecessor as archbishop of Cologne, accused of multiple violations of duties
"I am deeply ashamed," said the Cardinal of Cologne Rainer Maria Woelki, at a press conference, condemning the "concealment" of the facts, which occurred in the past, relating to sexual abuse in the archbishopric of Cologne.
"The actions must also have consequences for members of the clergy," he said.
The current archbishop of Hamburg, Msgr.
Stefan Hesse, who had been vicar general to the diocese of Cologne, allegedly "violated his duties" in drafting the report on sexual abuse in the archbishopric of Cologne.
According to the experts, however, the Cardinal of Cologne Rainer Maria Woelki is not responsible for omissions.
This is what emerges from a press conference by Gercke and his team.